New phase in battle over health care law

When the White House sought to regain control of the health care debate as Obamacare rolled into effect this week, the face of that effort was Mary-Therese – a Floridian diagnosed with breast cancer.

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By MAEVE RESTONLos Angeles Times

capecodtimes.com

By MAEVE RESTONLos Angeles Times

Posted Jan. 5, 2014 at 8:23 AM
Updated Jan 5, 2014 at 8:26 AM

By MAEVE RESTONLos Angeles Times

Posted Jan. 5, 2014 at 8:23 AM
Updated Jan 5, 2014 at 8:26 AM

» Social News

When the White House and its allies sought to regain control of the health care debate as Obamacare rolled into effect this week, the face of that effort was not President Barack Obama, but Mary-Therese – a Floridian who said she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 and then lost her coverage.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for Jan. 1, 2014,” she says in a Web ad from Organizing for Action, the advocacy group born out of the president’s campaign operation.

But the story about the health care law in a new video from the campaign of Monica Wehby, a Republican making a long-shot bid against Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Ore­gon, was very different. It featured “Donna of Portland,”who said she never received enroll­ment options from her state’s exchange after applying when her family’s insurance plan was canceled.

“We had heard that the Oregon Medical Insurance plan was probably going to be closing, but we just thought I would fold into another insurance,”Donna says to the camera from her kitchen in a video that accuses Merkley of misleading Oregonians about being able to keep their health plans. “We had no idea there would be this kind of time involved, or turmoil.”

Those sorts of dueling stories are the next phase of the battle over Obamacare, and the version Americans find most compelling could tip the balance in a dozen or so Senate races this year that will determine the balance of power in Washington.

For much of the fall, the Obama administration and vulnerable Democratic lawmakers have been buried under stories about technical difficulties of the lurching federal insurance portal known as HealthCare.gov, and the shock waves that followed the cancellation of about 5 million plans that did not meet the law’s requirements. In a frank assessment during his last news conference, the president said simply that the law had gotten “about as bad a bunch of publicity as you could imagine.”

White House advisers think they are turning the corner with about 2.1 million people enrolled in Obamacare plans, in addition to 4 million others who have been found eligible for coverage under the law’s expansion of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Starting Wednesday, the spotlight shifted, at least in part, from government mechanics to insurance companies, who will now share responsibility for handling any sign-up glitches.

But the campaign against the health care law – and the Democratic senators who voted for it – remains vociferous, well-financed and multifaceted. Conservative legal strategists, who have led a multifront march to the Supreme Court, notched a small victory on New Year’s Eve when they succeeded in getting Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to grant a temporary reprieve to an order of Roman Catholic nuns running a charity, shielding it from complying with a mandate in the law to cover birth control.

Outside groups like Americans for Prosperity have poured millions of dollars into anti-Obamacare ads aimed at top targets like Democratic Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina. On Thursday the group announced a new set of ads aimed at Landrieu, Hagan and another Democratic senator, New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen.

As the 2014 races gear up, Republican Senate challengers with less money to spend – like Wehby in Oregon, Rep. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana and Rep. Tom Cotton in Arkansas – are on the hunt for Americans who will tell their stories about mishaps with Obamacare. As they solicit their experiences through campaign Facebook pages and websites and at their events, Republican operatives are also combing news stories for evidence of shrinking doctor networks, rising premiums or unexpected coverage gaps.

Because the health care law touches so many Americans, there is no shortage of stories on either side.

A Wehby aide said one of the women featured in the campaign’s video is the mother of one of Wehby’s former patients (the candidate is a pediatric neurosurgeon). The woman contacted Wehby’s campaign through Facebook after watching her health insurance premiums rise and her network of doctors shrink over the last year, changes that she believes result from broader shifts in the health care system because of the new law.

Last fall, Republican operatives used robocalls, Web ads, social media and billboards to bludgeon Democratic senators who used variations of Obama’s line that those who liked their health insurance plans could keep them. The new Wehby video closes with a clip of Merkley comparing the health care system to a Rubik’s Cube that he holds in his hand:“Health care is not a game,”the ad says.

Merkley’s seat is considered to be relatively safe in a solid-blue state. The freshman senator won in 2008 with 48.9 percent of the vote to 45.6 percent for his closest challenger, but Oregon’s disastrous problems with its health insurance marketplace, where consumers still cannot sign up online, have given his challengers an opening.

Asked about the criticism of Obamacare and Oregon’s troubles, a spokesman for Merkley said the senator was focused “on ensuring that Oregonians have access to health insurance.”

“No one should go without health insurance due to Cover Oregon’s mistakes. That is why he supports allowing people to sign up for coverage into January, with coverage retroactive to Jan. 1,” Merkley spokesman Matt McNally said.